Samsung Galaxy S10+ Review

This year’s Samsung’s top-of-the-line smartphones aim to impress with an almost bezel-less curved display, full-screen design with a cutout for its camera, reverse wireless charging, ultrasonic fingerprint scanner, 5 cameras onboard, and more. The Galaxy S10+ is just one of the three models in the high-end range, so let’s dig into the Samsung Galaxy S10+ review.

Design, Build, & Ergonomics

Looking at the phone, the first noticeable thing is its Infinity-O full-screen display with a small cutout for its dual selfie cameras. The screen is almost bezel-less with sides having curves for its Edge panel feature. The display is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 6.

The rest of the design is similar to the predecessor, it has a glass back protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 5 with stainless steel frames on the sides giving a shiny silver look. The build quality is excellent, the gaps are tight and even. It’s also IP68 rated meaning the phone is water and dust resistant.

Samsung also moved to the new fingerprint scanner technology that we saw on the HUAWEI Mate 20 Pro and other phones. It has an ultrasonic fingerprint scanner located on the screen that unlocks the phone when you put your thumb on the display.

The Samsung Galaxy S10 + is offered in two special models with a ceramic back and this is the black color ceramic variant. The case this time is hard, unlike the predecessor using a soft silicone case.

The bottom has a USB Type-C port, 3.5mm, stereo loudspeakers (another at the earpiece). The top carries hybrid SIM tray with 2x nano SIM slots and a microSD slot on SIM2. The left side has a Bixby key as usual and power key and volume control on the right.

Samsung Galaxy S10+ Images

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Display

The screen is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 6 with almost bezel-less and has a small cutout for its dual selfie cameras for full view display. The cutout is similar to the notch and you can hide it if not needed, it will add a black bar to the cutout area.

Speaking of the quality of the display, you have one of the most beautiful looking curved AMOLEDs with a high amount of brightness. The display supports HDR10+ content and is the first smartphone ever to record the HDR10+ videos.

You get display enhancements like Blue light filter, night mode, screen color modes with color balance options, changing screen resolution, and a handful of other features for Edge panel and Home screen.

Software & User Interface

The Samsung Galaxy S10+ runs on a new interface called OneUI and it’s based on the new Android 9 Pie. Samsung has moved to the newer in-house software that has more features and optimizations and also seems lighter than the Experience UI.

The interface is a lot different than the ones we found on the previous Samsung devices, the OneUI is much simpler, cleaner, and easy to use. The UI is fast and doesn’t lag, there’s also less amount of bloatware, we didn’t experience anything wrong with the UI.

The icons are gradually increased which you may not like at first, you can make them smaller in the homescreen settings if you want by changing the grid style. You don’t find Glace app that Samsung has put on the other phones.

Hardware, Performance, & Gaming

Samsung has put the most powerful Exynos chip on the Galaxy S10+, the Exynos 9820 is an 8nm octa-core CPU which is almost at the level of Qualcomm Snapdragon 855. It has a Mali-G76 MP12 (12-core) GPU for gaming and comes with as much of 12 GB LPDDR4X RAM and 1 TB of internal storage.

The Samsung Exynos 9820 SoC is manufactured in 8nm LPP process and consists of two mongoose cores, each of which can clock up to 2.7 GHz, two Cortex-A75 cores clocked of up to 2.5 GHz and the power-efficient four Cortex-A55 cores with up to 1.9 GHz speeds.

Other variants, especially in the US, are powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 855. We have Ceramic Black color variant with 8 GB RAM and 512 GB storage while the base variant starts with 128 GB storage.

Benchmarks indicate that the Samsung Galaxy S10+ is at the top of all the other phones in the segment, the AnTuTu score it to the 1st position leaving all the others behind. The Geekbench 4 also has eye-popping numbers as you can see in the screenshots below. The storage is UFS 2.1 type that gives speeds up to ~800 MB/s (read) and ~250 MB/s (write).

There is no denying that the Samsung Galaxy S10+ takes the game seriously, throw any game at it and it will play it to the full settings without worrying about the framerates. The Mali G76 MP12 offers more than enough power for all current game titles, we played PUBG Mobile and other games on maximum graphics settings and it turns out that this is a complete gaming machine that you are looking for, mobile gamers take note.

There’s nothing to worry about the device heating, though it gets warm, it’s absolutely harmless, the case will help you to feel less heat.

Cameras

There are a total of 5 cameras on the phone making it a camera-centric device, the Samsung Galaxy sports a triple + dual camera setup on the back and the front. The screen cutout on the front carries dual selfie cameras, one of 10 MP and another of 8 MP. The rear side offers a tri-camera setup that includes 12 MP + 12 MP + 16 MP cameras with an LED flash and heart rate monitor beside it.

Speaking more about the cameras, the 12 MP is the Dual Pixel main sensor with a variable aperture (f/1.5 – f/2.4) while the another 12 MP f/2.4 is the telephoto lens that is used for depth measuring and both the cameras support OIS. The third camera is of 16 MP f/2.2 and it is the ultra wide-angle camera for a wide scene view.

The Galaxy S10+ has a lot more to offer compared to its predecessors, the new things we found on the camera are AI backed with auto scene detection, the HDR10+ shooting, wide angle capturing, Super Steady video recording, dedicated Instagram mode, and better low-light capturing.

You also have the super slow motion 960 fps video recording, AR Stickers, Bixby Vision with AR experiences, Motion photos, and more. The big changes in the camera are its OneUI software which is now more optimized for the camera.

The cameras deliver quite good results in the daylight, slightly better than the predecessor, while there’s not a huge change, the AI differentiates between 30 different scenes and optimize the camera settings accordingly. The overall quality of the camera is one of the best in the segment, the photos are sharp and rich in details.

Samsung Galaxy S10+ Camera Samples

Samsung Galaxy S10+ Images

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Wide Angle

Live Focus

Wide Angle

Wide Angle

Wide Angle

Telephoto

Wide Angle

Telephoto

Wide Angle

Battery Runtime & Charging

The Samsung Galaxy S10+ is equipped with a 4,100 mAh battery with fast charging support and reverse wireless charging technology. Talking about the battery life, it seems convincing, you get 1 to 1.5 days of battery on moderate usage and 1.5 to 2 days of battery on a regular basis or using it as a daily driver.

Charging takes a while, it is not the fastest, you have to wait about close to 2 hours, or around 100 minutes to charge the battery fully. Rivals like HUAWEI Mate 20 Pro and OnePlus 6T are faster in terms on battery charging.

The Samsung Galaxy S10+ can be charged wirelessly and in addition to that, it comes with Wireless PowerShare that charges the other devices wirelessly when you put them on the back of the phone. You need to turn on the Wireless PowerShare from the notification panel.

Samsung Galaxy S10+ Battery Test Results

Apps/Games

Battery used

Runtime

Brightness

Wireless

1080p Video

2%

20 minutes

Auto

Off (Wi-Fi, GPS, Data)

YouTube (1080p) - Wi-Fi

4%

20 minutes

Auto

On (Wi-Fi)

PUBG MOBILE

6%

20 minutes

Auto

Off (Wi-Fi, GPS, Data)

Asphalt 9: Legends

5%

20 minutes

Auto

Off (Wi-Fi, GPS, Data)

Music (Offline)

1%

1 Hour

Screen Off

Off (Wi-Fi, GPS, Data)

Music (Online) - SoundCloud

2%

30 minutes

Screen Off

On (Wi-Fi)

TikTok

4%

20 minutes

Auto

On (Wi-Fi)

Instagram

3%

20 minutes

Auto

On (Wi-Fi)

Verdict

The Samsung Galaxy S10+ is certainly a worthy successor to its predecessor as far as the features are concerned. The curved display is really great, there’s a cutout so that you get a full-screen experience. Additional features include the ultrasonic fingerprint scanner under the display, the reverse wireless charging, and ability to capture HDR10+ videos.

The camera also delivers great pictures and shines out in its class. The performance is top-notch, the Exynos 9820 outperforms most flagship chips, ranks at the top and appears close to the rival Snapdragon 855. Overall, the Samsung Galaxy S10+ is the most versatile Android we know so far, the major competitors include the HUAWEI Mate 20 Pro and Apple iPhone XS Max.